The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-06-13
THE HEAVENS 0PENED.n
REV. TALMAGE'S TEXT ON THE
STONING OF STEPHEN.

His Knees Looking Into Heaven
The Lesson to be Learned by His
Life-An Would Do Well to be Found
in the Same Posture.
BROOKLYN, June 12.--This morning, at
the Tabernacle, the Rev. 7. Dewitt Tai
mage, D. D., expounded appropriate pas
sages of Scripture, after which the congre-
cation sang the favorite hymn: There is
Rest for the Weary" The reverend doe
tors text was Acts vii, $500: behold, |
see the heavens opened, and the Son of man
standing on the right hand Of God. Then
they cried out with a loud voice and stopped
their ears, and ran upon him with one ac-
cord, and cast him out of the city, and
stoned him; and the witnesses laid down
their clothes at young mans feet, whose
name was Saul. And they stoned Stephen,
calling upon God, and saying Lord Jesus,
receive my spirit And he kneeled down,
and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not
this sin to their charge And when he had
said this, he fell asleep" The preacher said
Stephen had been preaching rousing
sermon, and the people could not stand it.
They resolved to do as men sometimes
would like to do in this day, if they dared
with some plain preacher of righteousness
kill him. The only way to silence this man
was to knock the breath out OF him. So
they rushed Stephen out of the gates of the
city, and with curse, and whOop, and bel
low they brought him to the cliff, as was
the custom when they wanted to take away
| life by stoning. Having brought him to
the edge of the cliff they pushed him off
After he had fallen they came and looked
down, and seeing that he was not yet dead,
they began to drop stones upon him, stone
| after stone, stone after stone. Amid this
| horrible rain of missiles Stephen chambers up
on his knees and folds his hands, while
The blood drips from his temples TO his
cheeks, from his cheeks to his garments,
| from his garments TO the ground; and then,
| looking up, he makes two prayers-one for
himself and one for his murderers. Lord
Jesus, receive my spirit y that was for Him
self. Lord, lay not this sin to their
charger that was for his assailants. Then,
| from pain and loss of blood, he swooned
away and fell asleep.
want to show you to-day five pictures.
| Stephen gazing into heaven. Stephen look
| ing at Christ. Stephen stoned. Stephen in
his dying prayer. Stephen asleep
First, look at Stephen gazing into heaven.
Before you take leap you want to know
where you are going to land. Before you
climb ladder you want to know to what
| point the ladder reaches. And ii was right
| that Stephen, within a few moments of
| heaven, should be gazing into it. Wewould
| all do well to be found in the same posture,
| There is enough in heaven to keep US gazing.
A man of large wealth may have statuary
in the lrssl and paintings in the sitting
room, and works of art in all parts of the
house, but he has the chief pictures in the
| art gallery, and there hour after hour
| you walk with catalogue and glass
| and ever increasing admiration.
| Well, heaven is the gallery where God
has gathered the chief treasures of His
realm. The whole universe is His palace.
| In this lower room where we stop there are
many adornments: tesselated floor of ame-
thyst and blossom, and on the winding
| cloud-stairS are stretched out canvas on
which commingle azure, and purple, and
saffron, and gold. But heaven is the gallery
in which the chief glories are gathered.
| There are the brightest robes. There are the
| richest crowns. There are the highest ex-
hilarations. John says of it; 1.-THE
kings of the earth shall bring
their honor and glory into it," And
| l see the procession forming, and in
| the line come all empires, and the stars
spring up into an arch for the hosts to
march under. They keep step to the sound
! of earthquake and the pitch of avalanche
from the mountains, and the flag they bear
| is the flame Of a consuming world, and all
| heaven turns out with harps and trumpets
\ and myriad-vOiced acclamation of angelic
! dominion to welcome them in, and SO the
kings of the earth bring their honor and
\ glory into it, Do you wonder that good
people often stand like Stephen, looking into
| heaven. We have a great many friends
there. There is not a man in this house to-
| day so isolated in life but there is some one
| in heaven with whom he once shook hands.
| As q man gets older the number of his celes-
tial acquaintances very RAPIDLY multplies.
! We have not had one glimpse Of them since
the night we kissed them good-by and they
went away; but still we stand gazing at
heaven As when some OF our
friends go across the sea, we
stand on the dock, or on the
steamtug. and watch them, and after awhile
| the hulk of the vessel disappears, and then
there is only patch of sail on the sky, and
| soon that is gone, and they are all out OF
sight, and yet we stand looking in the same
| direction; so when our friends go away from
us into the future world we keep looking
down through the Narrows, and gazing and
gazing az though we expected that they
would come out and stand on some evening
cloud, and give us one glimpse OF their bliss
| ful and transfgured faces. While you long
10 join their companionship, and the years
| and the DAYS 90 with such tedium that they
| break your heart, and the viper OF pain and
sorrow and bereavement keeps gnaw
1 ing at your vitals you still stand, like
stephen, gazing into heaven. You wonder
if they have changed since you saw them
| last You wonder If they would recognize
your face now, so changed has it been with
| trouble. You wonder if, amid the myriad
delights they have, they care as much foi
YOU as they used to when they gave you O
helping hand and put their shoulder under
| your burdens. You wonder II they LOOK
! any older: and sometimes, in the evening
tide, when the house Is all quiet you Won.
der if you should call them by their first
name II they would not answer; and per
haps sometimes you do make the expert
ment. and when no one but God and your
self are there you distinctly call their names,
and listen. and wait, and sit gazing into
heaven.
Pass on now, and see Stephen looking
Npn Christ. My text says he saw the Son
MNan at the right hand Of God just
hd Christ looked in this world, just no"
| He ~oks in heaven, we cannot say: A
writer in the time of Christ says, describing
the Saviour's personal appearance, that he
| had blue eyes and light coInpleMon, ana q
very graceful structure; but ! suppose II
was all guess-work The painters Of the
! different ages have tried to imagine the
features of Christ, and put them upon can.
| vas: but we will have TO wait until with our
| own ewes we see Him and with our own ears
we can hear Him. And yet there IS a way
| of seeing and hearing him now. l have
| Ali hat and lonT